Due to popular demand, here is the section to discuss everything to do with our pets. Please remember though to post any queries regarding pet livestock in the livestock section as you are more likely to get the right response there!

Hi guys, I have a question about chicken breeds.. I've bought myself 36 hatching eggs which are currently in an incubator and are due to hatch in about 2 weeks. There's a few varieties in there, French Marans, Cuckoo Marans, Black Silkies, Rhode Island Red, Black Orpington, Buff Orpington and Welsummers. When they hatch, I'm planning on keeping the breeds separate, getting cockerels from different breeders and breed my own hens from the 'hopefully' fertile eggs.My question is about the French and Cuckoo Marans, should I keep them separate or put them all together? Same with the Orpingtons, will I get either Buff or Black from the eggs or will the offspring be a hybrid mixture of the two?Any advice anyone can give me would be most appreciated. Nick D. :)

I started off with similar good intentions too. I had marans and light sussex but simply couldnt seperate them with any success so i ended up with them all together. We raised about a dozen chicks this year in three seperate occasions. They obviously were a mix of breeds but i didnt mind in the end. I will leave the pure breeding to someone else and simply enjoy the numerous eggs.

dermers wrote:Hi guys, I have a question about chicken breeds.. I've bought myself 36 hatching eggs which are currently in an incubator and are due to hatch in about 2 weeks. There's a few varieties in there, French Marans, Cuckoo Marans, Black Silkies, Rhode Island Red, Black Orpington, Buff Orpington and Welsummers. When they hatch, I'm planning on keeping the breeds separate, getting cockerels from different breeders and breed my own hens from the 'hopefully' fertile eggs.My question is about the French and Cuckoo Marans, should I keep them separate or put them all together? Same with the Orpingtons, will I get either Buff or Black from the eggs or will the offspring be a hybrid mixture of the two?Any advice anyone can give me would be most appreciated. Nick D. :)

English clean legged Cuckoo Marans are (or should be) quite different to the French Marans, so if you are intending to keep purebreeds then these two will need to be kept separate You will need a lot of pens to keep them all separate once they have reached breeding age, but you can certainly rear them all together till then as long as you can identify which is which.

Don't forget the sexually mature male birds may try to fight each other, even through the wires of pens, which can lead to some nasty injuries.

Anyway it sounds as you are going to have lots of fun with them. Enjoy

First off mate,You will not need to get any Cock birds, You will be hatching them, It works out somthing like 50%-70% of what you hatch will be Cocks and the Rest will be hens. Now This is not cast In stone.I have just given a home to 4 chicks from the kids school, They had 11 eggs, 10 Hatched, 6 hens and 4 cocks, So with them It was the other way around. So not sact In stone.Are to going to be able to keep the Number of boy's that you may hatch ? or do you have plan In place for them ?

If you are going to breed Pure breeds then you will have to keep the breeds apart. So you will need quite a few pens.

Rough you should aim for one Boy to every 8 ish hens In a pen.

If you are not worried about breeding pure, Then there Is no need to keep any of them apart.

I have a mixed flocks t the moment. Not a large a number as you. But the breeds run together fine. And many people that Just keep hens for Pets and Eggs have mixed flocks.

Would it be possible to keep the hens all together and just put them in with the corresponding cock for a period of time until there were enough fertile pure eggs? The eggs could then go under what ever broody hen was available or in an incubator?

Keeping them separate all the time would meen loads of hen runs and hen houses all of which need to be bought or made and cleaned out. If it were me, I might keep the hens together and have a breeding run/house and a broody box/run. Not sure how you would deal with having a cock for each breed through. More thought required on my part lol